When I walk into Public School New York’s Garment District office, Maxwell Osborne greets me with a dap so familiar it leads a nearby PR person to ask if we already knew each other. “Nah,” we say in unison. There’s simply an inherent understanding between native New Yorkers like us.
Osborne and his co-designer Dao-Yi Chow’s shared reverence for New York City has always been vital to the DNA of their brand. The pair founded Public School in 2008 and quickly became staples of the local fashion scene, earning a handful of CFDA honors in the early 2010s and eventually becoming creative directors of DKNY. During the pandemic, however, the duo decided to shutter their label, before reemerging with a triumphant comeback show at New York Fashion Week this February.
A few weeks before their sophomore effort, last night’s spring-summer 2027 runway show, I was given the opportunity to browse through racks filled with the still-in-progress collection. I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw—a proposal for a complete modern wardrobe, full of familiar silhouettes tweaked just enough to feel genuinely fresh. There were boxy dress shirts, made in New York with luxurious Japanese cotton-silk blends, with large French cuffs finished with a single mother-of-pearl button in lieu of a cufflink. I spied wide-leg barrel leg jeans constructed in a patchwork of subtly different blue washes. My favorite piece was a pair of very long cargo shorts cut in tropical wool, with functional buttons that travel from the hems all the way up to just below the waistband. Most of the collection was made in New York, with some cut-and-sew done in Los Angeles and a few knits made in Italy.
I chatted with Osborne and Chow about how Public School’s yearslong hiatus helped reset the brand, their wild new Nike ACG collab, and why they believe producing runway shows in New York is more important than ever.
GQ: When did each of you first become interested in style?
Osborne: I don’t know if it was a specific moment. I was always into fashion. Growing up around the people I did and going to school, we always cared about what we wore, trying to be first on the scene with certain things. To really hone in on designing, that came when I was working retail and watching seasons come through the store. When it was quiet, I found myself doodling. That was the moment where I found out, like, “Oh yeah, it’s actually real that you can be a designer.”
Chow: I really discovered fashion and style through music. Growing up in New York City in the early ’90s, hip hop was such a big part of my life, and through the music I discovered the ideas and the power of style—not necessarily brands or clothing, even though that was part of it too. But it was such a big part of your identity and how you were viewed by your peers and kids throughout the city that it was ingrained from an early time in my life. From there, I developed an aesthetic and learned what things look good to me. Establishing that early on, I think, was a big key to now having a career in fashion.
